Ty Cobb Article - Not a Racist A-Hole?

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

I'm far from a Cobb expert, but this article seems to be at least somewhat accurate. The piece completely contradicts Stump's garbage and indicates that Ken Burns just parrots information instead of doing much actual research. Thoughts?

http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-was-ty-cobb-the-history-we-know-thats-wrong/

 

[Zedia]

There was some discussion of Cobb and that author's book last year:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/ty-cobb-redemption.10071/

 

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

There was some discussion of Cobb and that author's book last year:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/ty-cobb-redemption.10071/

My apologies. The link got shared on FB by a friend of mine. Mods can feel free to delete this thread, if necessary.

 

[The Price Is Wrong]

Wow. I went in expecting some apologist to cast him as a product of his times, perhaps "misunderstood", a misanthrope with some redeeming qualities. What I got was that the entire mythos of Ty Cobb was made up out of whole cloth by a drunk hack journalist - other than Cobb having a short fuse and being ready to fight people on a moment's notice in his playing days - and that in Wag-The-Dog fashion, repeating it enough has made it true in the eyes of sports fans and history. Quite a story; even CHB hasn't posthumously ruined a former legend's reputation by spreading outright lies.

Great article. Reminds me of the rehabbing of Tom Yawkey's reputation by a few writers here that came around a few months ago.

 

[Seels]

I was a casual reader of baseball fever for years. The most prolific poster there, Bill Burgess I think, argued passionately that Cobb's reputation was misstated.

Interesting article.

 

[BannedbyNYYFans.com]

There are two Ty Cobb threads so I'm bumping the newest.

Here is a 5 minute clip featuring Charles Leerhsen, the author of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, the book that inspired @adam42381 to start this thread. Like most other baseball lovers, I was raised to believe Cobb was the devil incarnate. Shame on Al Stump for ruining a man's legacy.

I think I'll buy the book after watching the piece.

 

[Byrdbrain]

The podcast "Our Fake History" did an interesting one on this a couple of years back.
It is on this archive page:
http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/archived-episodes/

He used the book in question as a good chunk of the basis of the cast.
He does come up with one troubling episode where he pushed a cleaning lady down the stairs but all in all he certainly concurs that he wasn't remotely "the worst person ever" and if you are making a list of worst to best people ever that Stump would be higher on the list than Cobb.

 

[charlieoscar]

You might find this article from the Smithsonian by Gilbert King, August 30, 2011, interesting: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/

 

[Thetoddwalker]

Im sure Cobb was difficult to get a long with, but it made me quite sad when I heard the author bring up these points initially on Cobb. Wagner had the same effect on the legacy of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer simply because they were Jews. History is a funny thing.

 

[barbed wire Bob]

Im sure Cobb was difficult to get a long with, but it made me quite sad when I heard the author bring up these points initially on Cobb. Wagner had the same effect on the legacy of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer simply because they were Jews. History is a funny thing.

Major Swindon:
But what about history, sir?

General John Burgoyne:
History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.

 

[Monbo Jumbo]

.... Wagner had the same effect on the legacy of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer simply because they were Jews. .....

Let's not totally rewrite history here. Meyerbeer's L'Africaine is a shitty opera.

 

[Remagellan]

Major Swindon:
But what about history, sir?

General John Burgoyne:
History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.

Respect for a pull from a great movie!

If all of this is true, then shame on Ken Burns and his team, because Cobb is the villain of the early episodes of Baseball. Maybe a little more time on research, and a little less time on zooming in on old photos would have been in order for "America's storyteller".